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The Watering Hole, Wednesday, August 6, 2014.

A young woman approached the gate of a wondrous new city. “Where do I begin” she thought “to learn everything this place has to teach me?” She walked past the gate, looking with wide eyes at the shops and stores and people.

“I want to learn.” she would say to passersby. “Where did you go to learn? Where should I start?”

“Begin with what interests you” one would say.

“Start by walking in the woods” said another.

“Read” “Perform a cleaning ritual” “look for what interests you the most” the suggestions were endless, leaving her more bewildered than ever. She sat at the city gate, wondering if she should go to the library, visit the elders or walk in the woods. She wanted to learn everything about everything, but what should be her first steps?

A Traveler in a hooded green cloak approached. The young woman looked up at him as he pulled his cloak back, revealing dark hair against the cobalt sky. High above, an eagle circled.

“Are you going in, or out?” the Traveler asked.

“I don’t know” replied the young woman.

“Then you are going no where.” the Traveler observed. The young woman sighed.

“Mind if I join you?” The Traveler sat next to the young woman. “This really is a marvelous city. There’s lots of things to do, to see, to learn.”

“I know” sighed the young woman “there’s so much, and I want to learn it all….I just don’t know where to begin.”

The eagle cried overhead.

The Traveler stood, and helped the young woman up. He walked slowly in a circle. Returning to the young woman, he spoke. “No doubt many have told you how to begin.” She nodded.

“The path is different for each” the Traveler continued. “One seeks knowledge from books, another from nature, another from doing. Each path is right for each of them.”

“But what is right for me?” her blue-green eyes implored.

“Ah…that’s the thing no one can tell you. Tell me, have you ever become your breath?” There was a twinkle in the Traveler’s eyes.

“What does that mean?”

“It means” he replied “whatever you think it means.”

She paused, in thought. The Traveler reached out with his left hand and moved his palm slowly downward past her forehead, and her eyes closed. The young woman began to breathe, slowly, inhaling….exhaling…….relaxing. The eagle cried again.

She stood there, at the city gate, for several moments. Breathing. She thought about becoming her breath until the only sound she could hear was the sound of her breath as she inhaled….exhaled…breathed in…breathed out…..until gently, ever so gently, she was filled with the understanding…what becoming her breath meant to her….and why her path would be hers, and hers alone.

“The way you choose, will be the right way for you.” she heard the Traveler’s voice as if coming from a dream. She struggled to open her eyes and as she did, she was momentarily blinded by the bright sunlight. She thought she saw the Traveler for a moment, golden in the midmorning sun, but as her eyes became used to the light once more, he faded from her vision.

She looked at the city inside the gate, and the woods outside the gate. “Whichever way I choose, will be the right way for me” she thought as she stepped forward, her heart beating with excited anticipation to learn all this new world had to offer.

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43 thoughts on “The Watering Hole, Wednesday, August 6, 2014.”

The First Big Video Game Made By Native Alaskans
…The upcoming video game will also hold their culture, artwork and folktales in a vessel designed to carry a sense of the Inuit spirit far away from their southcentral Alaskan homeland…

In a move that smacks of censorship, Republic Report has discovered that a telecom industry-affiliated lobbying group successfully persuaded an African American news website to remove an article that reported critically on the groups advocating against Net Neutrality. The order to delete the article came from the website’s parent company, a business partner to Comcast.

Last Friday, I reported on how several civil rights groups, almost all with funding from Comcast, Verizon and other Internet Service Providers, recently wrote to the Federal Communication Commission in support of Chairman Tom Wheeler’s plan, which would create Internet fast lanes and slow lanes, an effective death of Net Neutrality. That piece was syndicated with Salon and The Nation, and several outlets aggregated the article. For a short period, NewsOne, a news site geared towards the African American community, posted the piece along with its own commentary.

I cancelled my ‘smart’ phone/cell service about 6 weeks ago, but kept the Droid for a future photo/art project (think Edward Abbey – ‘Kill your Television’). It has been turned off, all this time, except for every week or so being turned on to check the battery. The phone is still “running”. The battery is dead in about 3 days. It’s a good battery (tested). Maintaining what little data in memory doesn’t take that much juice. It appears it is still transmitting something whenever it gets within range of a tower. Interesting, eh?

The journey to the comet was not straightforward, however. Since its launch in 2004, Rosetta had to make three gravity-assist flybys of Earth and one of Mars to help it on course to its rendezvous with the comet. This complex course also allowed Rosetta to pass by asteroids Šteins and Lutetia, obtaining unprecedented views and scientific data on these two objects.

If only it were possible to have been on Rosetta as it headed to the comet!

Incredible journey… 10 years! I remember when it launched, being amazed at such a feat. The mathematics involved in charting such a course, fuel communications, mind boggling to me. To be here now as it approaches, and the fact that it didn’t get Lost in Space along the way… humans never cease to amaze me.
The photo is incredible. If they pull this thing off by actually landing on it I’m going to volunteer for something. I don’t know what, maybe washing and waxing spacecraft for Virgin Galactic. Then I’ll stow-away in the landing gear and go into space and then that’ll be The End!

Good one George!
In each one of those little white buildings on the other side of the ‘lawn’ there is an average of 1.5 adults and 5.25 children. None can read, write or count past 20 (the boys are ‘smarter’, they can count to 21). They can, however, recite the entire bible if they leave out the uncomfortable parts.